Ridgefield is a sweet, beautiful little town with some pretty sweet restaurants. Nothing fancy, mind you, unless you consider the Cake Box’s artisan old-school cupcakes (replicating Hostess, but with precious ingredients) fancy. Its downtown features a long-lived hot dog cart named Chez Lenard, and along Route 7, which bypasses the village, is the Ridgefield Ice Cream shop, churning what may be the best soft-serve ice cream anywhere (using vintage Carvel equipment that delivers a dense, creamy product as smooth as silk). Also on Route 7 is the Wooster Hollow Diner, which is several cuts above ordinary diners with its menu of deluxe Benedicts and avocado caprese toast for breakfast and lunch of bacon-egg-cheese Brazilian burgers and Cajun shrimp pineapple wrap. Just down the road in Redding, the place locals love is called the Whistle Stop, located in the old Branchville train station and specializing in broad-topped muffins.
WITH THE EXCEPTION of the hot dog bun, there has never been an edible invention as useful as the ice cream cone. Eat it all and leave nothing behind...
Hot dogs, the most American food of all, defy the regimentation that has made hamburgers, prime steaks, pancakes, and pizza such conspicuously successful franchise opportunities. (There are more than...
Pancakes make people happy. Arriving at the table in the form of short stacks or lofty towers, or fanned out like a haul of soft gold medallions, they are...
Great Soft Serve There is so much inferior soft-serve ice cream (aerated, chemically-flavored), that soft-serve in general has a bad reputation among ice cream lovers. But there are exceptions, soft-serve...
